Mystery of World's First Known Pandemic Solved

Scientists have solved a 1,500-year-old medical mystery—revealing the cause of the "Plague of Justinian" the outbreak that began the world's first known pandemic.

Researchers found direct genomic evidence of the culprit— Yersinia pestis , the bacterium which causes plague—in a mass grave in Jerash, Jordan, in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Lasting from A.D. 541–549, the Justinian plague is thought by many historians to have reshaped by Byzantine Empire . It is also notable for being the first of many waves in the "First plaque pandemic" (A.D. 541–750), whose death toll is estimated to reach into the tens of millions.

"For centuries, we've relied on written accounts describing a devastating disease, but lacked any hard biological evidence of plague's presence," paper author and genomicis